The Field Keeper
Where ordinary time becomes a landscape to wear.
A hand-stitched poncho.
The Field Keeper begins with two panels of cloth, a needle, thread and time.
Running stitches gradually move across the surface. Lines wander, colours gather, and some areas become dense while others remain almost untouched.
There is no stitched design to copy and no finished surface to reproduce. The cloth is made by hand before the two panels are joined to form a simple poncho.
What begins as ordinary cloth gradually becomes a landscape you can wear.
A field of stitches
I find that grass reminds me of a landscape of stitching. A single blade can easily go unnoticed. It is only when I look across a whole field that I see what all those small, ordinary parts have made together.
One stitch changes very little. Many stitches gradually become a field.
The handbook
The Field Keeper handbook takes you from preparing your cloth and beginning the first stitches through to joining the panels and wearing the finished garment.
It includes guidance on cloth, thread, running stitch, colour, and stitch density, as well as adaptable proportions and illustrated construction notes.
Basic sewing familiarity is useful for constructing the poncho, including using a domestic sewing machine. The stitched landscape itself grows freely, without an embroidery pattern to follow.